#1

On the first day, the sky was on fire. Huge columns of flame stretched above the earth, twisting and turning in an unrelenting dance. Thick billows of smoke blocked out the sun, blending day with night. A constant sickly orange glow lighting up the whole sky.

On the second day, it was very hot. A rain began early in the morning. Though it was not a normal rain, it was black and ran slowly like molasses. It hit the ground with a force akin to hail, each bit containing tiny pebbles that cut the skin. The rain coated the ground in a thick sticky mud that dried fast. When it dried, little salt crystals formed and shimmered with the orange glow of the sky.

On the third day, it was still. The earth was sick looking. The fire had stopped, but the sky was brighter than ever before. It blazed yellow at noon time, the horizon shimmering like a mirage. In the late evening the earth was broken and cracked, parched of all water. Deep crevices shattered through the crystalline surface, making shards of salt rain down like glass.

On the fourth day, it was very cold. The sky was dark all day, making everything nightmarishly black . Late in the evening, a wind started up, making the dusty landscape drift like an endless sea. An entire mountain was blown down into a valley, burying it until it was indistinguishable from the surrounding world.

On the fifth day, it snowed. A heavy snow that felt cold but looked gray, not white. The sky had turned a deep purple. Huge clouds billowed and swirled, dumping foot upon foot of gray snow. At noon, angry lighting exploded across the sky. Every time it flashed, the earth lit up enough for one to make out the never ending ocean of frozen waste.

When the snow stopped, the earth was completely still. No noise, not even the drone of a howling wind was left to welcome more ice.

For many weeks the earth was still. And then, at the end of the fifth month, there was a bare patch of sky. The bare patch revealed a full moon, its face a welcome companion to the barren landscape. The night sky looked somehow wrong though. The stars were different. They were smudged and sickeningly bright, as if somebody had wiped grease on the sky. And the patch was gone. But the clouds that followed were not low and menacing, they were high and thin. They were normal clouds. Untainted by fire.